While in Chengdu to attend a friend's wedding, I chanced upon the end year anime convention that would take place on the same day - 30/12/2023 (this was a 3-day event), and immediately pre-ordered the VIP ticket (RMB $128, S$24).
The VIP ticket was priced RMB $50 more than the Normal ticket and has a designated queue & entry gate plus comes with a goodie bag that needed to be redeemed inside the Hall. Given that we cannot even enter the local convention hall without paying at least S$20, the VIP option was naturally a steal.
(You will need a China number to purchase the tickets and thankfully my Chinese exchange friend lent me a hand on this.)
However, it was an excruciating effort to enter; as China favoured QR code scanning over physical tickets, it was impossible to receive OTP to retrieve my QR code and had the helpdesk troubleshoot for over 30 minutes. Thankfully armed with screenshots of my payment proof, an officer extracted my invoice number and let me in.
By then it was already 3:30pm, and with 2.5h till the end of Day 1, I rushed through the expo corridor towards Hall 3, seeing I had 4 halls to conquer.
Inside the Hall
Sparse, spacious, and silent, something AFA can only dream of.
Come check out some of the exhibition highlights, starting with the impressive 1/4 scale figures from Lightyear Studio:
Kamikaze Minato pre and Hokage version
2nd Hokage - Senju Tobirama
1st Hokage - Senju Hashirama
The classic Inuyasha brothers
I forgot which studio this was from, but presenting Sakuyamon from Digimon Tamers
Other attractions
Live voice acting from voice drama series 《秉性下等》
Tags: BL, 1st person, HE, 狗血
Generous and dedicated cosplay photography spaces
A free for all stage where continuous BGM clips were played and random dancers who recognised the tune jumped in and danced spontaneously
Live parade of traditional palace costumes
Breathtaking digital art, 《Butterfly3》by Wlop
Kawaii Collage 1
Avatar Collage 2
My favourite non-BL Chinese 3D animation: Shenlan Qiyu (The Land of Miracles)
Archery game booth from the same production house, a rather creative way to attract traffic
Cosplayers causally dunking
Some overly flashy anime sedan
Would be quite a sight to see someone drive this version of Porsche
My favourite pastime during secondary school days - spamming Initial D on manual mode
Cosplay Galore
Sebby <333 albeit female but still hawt
Gojo winter version still didn't fail to raise some temperature
Saw this cute potter while queuing for my goodie bag
Xielian from Heaven's Blessing (天官赐福)
Starstruck by Albedo from Overlord
Appreciate the bare chested Inuyasha
Gaara caught my eye from afar with the gourd
Mashiro Rima from Shugo Chara, a dated Shojo anime that was surprisingly still popular
Hange Zoe who was also part time photographer his/her DSLR
Managed to catch Mikasa mid-way retreating after posing
Inumaki Toge from Jujutsu Kaisen
Kagura and a shrank Gintoki
A moody Madoka Kaname
Spotted the young Obito as I was heading towards the metro
& finally...
Contents of the VIP goodie bag:
Sticking with the regular tickets next round.
xoxo
